


it's getting hot in here (so take off all your clothes)

by acertainheight



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: ...ish. Fluff-ish., F/F, Fluff, Naked Fluff?, sickly sweet fluffy fluff fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:43:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertainheight/pseuds/acertainheight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three little vignettes, three pairings. Prompt: "Someone's really into the sight of their smaller LI borrowing their oversized shirt. That's it. That's the whole prompt." (And that's the whole fic, too.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i was like, good gracious, ass is bodacious

**Author's Note:**

> mini-fics! originally posted on the DA kinkmeme, expanded slightly and revised here. I was hesitant to post these (they're a little less silly than the title suggests but not by much) but decided it's femslash february and, hey, why not! 'tis the season.
> 
> chapter order: i. hawke/isabela ii. isabela/aveline iii. isabela/merrill

i.

“Isabela,” Hawke murmurs against her ear. Her voice comes out ragged, a hoarse reminder of a night spent shouting Isabela's name—and then spent moaning, nearly sobbing, unable to remember how to form any words at all. “Wow. That was—wow.”  
  
“Wasn't it?” Isabela laughs, sounding smug and satisfied. She tugs the blankets up over them before wrapping her arms tight around Hawke's bare waist, pulling her even closer, until Hawke can barely tell where her own body ends and Isabela's body begins. “Not bad at all.”  
  
“Mm.” Hawke presses her nose into the crook of Isabela's neck and closes her eyes, breathing her in; Isabela is soft and warm beside her, and Hawke thinks that she would do anything in the world to stay right here, curled up together, until the sun rises. She knows better—

But the words tumble out anyway in a desperate rush: “You should stay the night. Just this once. It's late, you know. And dark. Terribly dark. I'd hate for you to trip on a pebble, fall into a puddle, some sort of unspeakable tragedy. You'll be much safer here. And I make excellent breakfasts. Decent, anyway.”

Hawke stumbles to a halt, abruptly silenced by the wave of hot embarrassment washing over her. Isabela doesn't speak and Hawke steels herself for the inevitable disappointment; it settles over her like a cold fog, not any easier for the familiarity. She can already hear the answer ringing in her ears— _sorry, sweet thing, I've got places to be, people to see—_ she can already hear the creak of the window as Isabela slips away into the night. She waits, not quite breathing, not daring to open her eyes, too afraid to risk a glimpse of the pity that must be written on Isabela's face.

It's not—it's not that she cares, not really. That's what she's been telling herself lately. It would just... be nice, she thinks. She swallows around the lump in her throat and waits for Isabela to let her down easy one more time.  
  
But when Isabela speaks at last, her voice shines with affection and amusement. “Alright, if it's enough to stop you babbling on about it.”  
  
“What? Really?” Hawke jerks up to eye her, suspicious. But she looks sincere: eyes bright as the gold around her neck, smile wide and blindingly lovely, better than any dream Hawke's ever dared to dream. She's like a work of art, a halo of dark hair splayed behind her on the pillow, soft and beautiful. The sight of her smile is enough to make Hawke feel faint. “If I run to grab a glass of water, will you be gone by the time I'm back?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Isabela promises. She sounds like she means it. “There are pebbles out there, you know. Very dangerous.” She pushes Hawke's shoulder, playful. “Go get your water, you goose. And get me some, too, won't you? Only—make it something stronger.”  
  
“I will,” Hawke says, and she laughs, giddy at the prospect: to fall asleep beside Isabela, to wake up beside her for the very first time. She leans close to kiss her and it turns into a long, breathless moment, hands in each other's hair and legs tangled up. At last Hawke manages to pull back away, flushed and stammering: “I'll be right back.”  
  
When Hawke comes racing back into the room, cradling a bottle of wine, her heart jumps into her throat. The bed's empty. So. She was gone after all, she hadn't—  
  
“Welcome back, sweet thing.” Isabela steps into view from around the corner and pauses, leaning on the bedpost, to smile in Hawke's direction. “I was beginning to think you'd gotten lost.”  
  
_Oh._ Hawke coughs, clears her throat, and tries to sound vaguely more composed than she is: “You look—you look nice.”  
  
“This old thing?” Isabela teases. “Is it yours? I just threw it on.”  
  
Hawke's shirt, cast to the floor in a frantic flurry not so long ago, doesn't look like _this old thing_ on Isabela. It hangs like a dress on her; Hawke's tall, built like a particularly-gangly tentpole, and the shirt goes down low, hitting at the middle of Isabela's thighs. But it's not exactly a poor fit. She fills it out; it clings to every inch of her, highlights every curve. It's only buttoned two-thirds of the way up, and even left loose like that, her breasts threaten to spill out from the tightly stretched constraints of the fabric. Hawke stares, dazed, at the gaps of dark skin between buttons threatening to pop, and runs her gaze up the line of her cleavage to meet her eyes. “You look really nice,” she echoes weakly.  
  
Isabela's eyes sparkle. “I know. Why don't you crack that bottle open and come join me in bed?” When she turns to walk back to the head of the bed, the shirt rides up with every sway of her hips, flashing enough skin to make Hawke's face feel hot and her head spin.  
  
Hawke follows her readily, just as she always has; she's not one to say no to Isabela, not now and not ever. And when—half-drunk on wine and the desperate thrill of love—she at last unbuttons those straining buttons and pushes her shirt off Isabela's shoulders, each tender kiss pressed to her bare chest stands in for all the words Hawke's not yet sure how to say.


	2. i feel like bustin' loose and i feel like touchin' you

ii.

There are certain things that Aveline takes for granted. First and foremost: that she won't walk into her office to find any shady characters lounging at her desk in her stolen clothing. It's a small thing, really, she thinks. Not too much to ask. But now, to be robbed of the simple joy of not having one's office broken into—! No. She won't stand for it.

That's her first thought, anyway. Her second thought is that she's never seen a better sight than Isabela's long bare legs kicked up on her desk, all those crumpled papers beneath her be damned. Aveline's trying not to dwell on her second thought.

Aveline slams the door shut behind her hard enough to make her teeth rattle and twists the lock. She turns, takes a deep breath, tries to pass it off as a frustrated huff, and fixes Isabela with her very best ferocious glare. “That's my shirt and I want it back immediately,” she snaps, punctuating each word with a stern jab of her finger.  
  
Isabela puts on an affronted expression, as if she's the offended party, which only makes Aveline bristle more. “Are you accusing me of theft? I would never.” She looks like she wants to laugh, eyes crinkling ever-so-slightly at the corners, but somehow she manages to maintain her indignant look.   
  
“It's mine,” Aveline insists. With a great deal of effort, she jerks her gaze up from Isabela's chest—the sight of her full breasts straining against the buttons of Aveline's shirt, tailored for broad shoulders and a flat chest, makes Aveline feel uncomfortably dizzy—and back to her eyes. “It's got my name embroidered on the inside of the collar. Just look.”  
  
Isabela opens her mouth, closes it again, and narrows her eyes in horror. “That's—that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever heard. I'm not taking it off to look. I don't want to know if it's true.” She tugs the oversized shirt up where it's slipping down around her shoulders. “I know it's yours. You left it in my room last night and I'm returning it because I'm a good citizen.”  
  
Aveline can feel herself rapidly going red at the memory; she tries to stand up a little straighter, tries to look a little more imposing and a little less like the smitten fool who staggered out of the Hanged Man last night without noticing there was nothing beneath her jacket. If Isabela's smirk is anything to go by, though, her efforts aren't entirely successful. “I might have needed it! How do you know I wasn't planning on wearing that today?”  
  
Isabela scoffs and rolls her eyes. “You seem to have managed just fine. Besides, it looks better on me, doesn't it?”  
  
Aveline licks her dry lips and takes a deep breath, somewhere between frustrated and... something else she's still not quite willing to put into words. A different sort of frustrated. The sort of frustrated that sets butterflies loose in her stomach and makes the bloodrush in her ears drown out all her other thoughts. “It looks different on you,” she says. And then for good measure, under her breath—just loud enough to be sure Isabela can hear: “Thieving slattern.”  
  
“Thank you,” Isabela says, voice sweet as honey, and she flashes a smile that makes Aveline's heart skip. “If you really want it back, big girl, you'll have to come get it yourself.”  
  
Aveline takes a step forward and extends her hand. “Fine. Give it back.”  
  
“Don't be simple, Aveline.”  
  
Aveline thinks that Isabela might be the only person she'd ever met who could make that jibe sound so simultaneously infuriating and so charming. She glances at the door, as if it might swing open at any moment despite the lock, and then back at Isabela, who has one brow raised in a taunt. “Remember,” Aveline says at last, “same rules as before. You're not supposed to tell anyone about this.”  
  
“Trust me, I won't.” Isabela pulls a horrified face. “I'd never live it down. Think of my reputation!”  
  
“ _Your_ reputation? I—”  
  
“Aveline. Shut up and come reprimand me for my foul misdeeds, Guard Captain.”  
  
“Oh.” Aveline frowns, startled. “Is that—are we doing that again? I didn't realize—”  
  
“ _Aveline_.”  
  
This time, Aveline obediently shuts up. She crosses the last steps left between them in an instant. Isabela leans forward and Aveline meets her there, claiming her lips in a fierce kiss, before she catches her by the collar and jerks her up harshly onto the desk, sending papers and pens scattering across the room. She pins Isabela's wrists to the desk and kisses her, rough and hungry. She can faintly hear the sound of spilled ink dripping to the floor, but it doesn't quite register over the sounds of Isabela's breathless gasps.  
  
“It does—” Aveline takes a hasty, shaky breath, her lips against Isabela's neck, breathing in the smoke and salt of Isabela and the starch of her own shirt. “It does look better on you, for the record.”  
  
“Mm,” Isabela moans agreeably, tilting her head back as Aveline scatters bruising kisses down her neck to her collarbone. “I think it'll look even better on the floor, though.”  
  
And it does.


	3. you with a winner, so baby, you can't lose

iii.

Merrill twirls as if she were wearing a ballgown—the finest silk, all brocade and darting gold, something more fit for a palace than this creaking ship—and tugs the ragged coat closer around her bare body. “Oh, Isabela! It's fabulous, isn't it?”  
  
Isabela feels the blood rush to her cheeks at the sight and the sound of Merrill's laughter. She ducks her head to hide the smile tugging at her lips and peers up at Merrill from beneath her lashes. She's so small, so short and as thin as a reed; Isabela's navy captain's coat nearly swallows her up. Unspeakably beautiful, Isabela thinks. The whole scene—it's like something out of a vision, something she'd never once come close to imagining for herself. “It's perfect on you, Kitten,” she says, soft.  
  
Merrill giggles and twists again, paying no attention to the spell she's cast over Isabela. The coat comes down halfway to her knees and the sleeves spill past her hands. The frayed edges flutter faintly with each spin. “You ought to call me Captain now. Oh! I feel—well, maybe a little bit silly. Do I look silly?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Isabela reassures her. “I've never seen anyone look less silly in my life. You look lovely.”  
  
“You're so sweet. So good to me. I don't know how I can ever repay you, really.” She smooths down the coat and peers into the grimy mirror fastened to the wall of the cabin. _It's not the same as your old one, exactly,_ Isabela had tried to joke, awkward, after spending too much on a gift as frivolous and fragile as a mirror, and Merrill had laughed and kissed her and lit her heart on fire for the thousandth time. “To let me run away with you on your boat, and then to... to just be so wonderful, always.”  
  
“It's a ship, Kitten. Not a boat.” Isabela bites back a smile and the urge to insist that she's not so wonderful, not really; she's trying to do less of that last one these days. She rises from the bed, steps over their clothing scattered on the floor from before, and stands behind Merrill, wrapping her arms around her waist and pressing a soft kiss to the back of her neck. She watches in the mirror as Merrill's eyes flutter shut. “And you're the one who's been so good to _me._  What would I do without my trusty first mate?”  
  
“Oh, probably about the same sorts of things you do now, really,” Merrill says, looking thoughtful. She settles her hands over Isabela's on her stomach. “Sail your boat around and look dashing and shout at the others when they get too close to the edge.”  
  
“Mm,” Isabela agrees, and this time she can't keep from smiling. “That's only because I'm tired of trying to fish Varric out of the sea. He has a terrible sense of balance and he smells like a dog when he's wet. Anyway—where was I—the point is that I don't know where I'd be without you.”  
  
“Right here, probably.” Merrill turns around in Isabela's arms, and scoots just a touch closer, their hips bumping together and their noses an inch apart. She settles a hand on Isabela's bare stomach, thumb moving in idle strokes that send little wild shivers coursing through Isabela. “But I'd be somewhere else, then, and I wouldn't like that very much. I'm glad we're in the same spot.”  
  
“So am I.” Isabela pushes back a stray strand of Merrill's hair and kisses her right on the tip of her nose. “Why don't you keep the coat, hm? And I'll get you a big hat to match the next time we dock.”  
  
“Oh! Are you sure? It looks so nice on you.”  
  
“Absolutely.” Isabela kisses her forehead and then her lips, soft and gentle. She cups Merrill's cheek in one hand. “It suits you. You look like a proper pirate. We'll get you a hook for a hand next.”  
  
Merrill wrinkles her nose. “I don't think so. I need both of my hands. Maybe a parrot instead?”  
  
“Maybe a parrot,” Isabela agrees. The coat has started to slip off Merrill's bony shoulders, and Isabela tries to tug it back up, but it's a lost cause: it's too heavy and big, tailored for curves and broad shoulders and wide hips, and gravity's insistent on pulling it to the ground.  
  
“It's alright,” Merrill says, and she gives a slight shrug of her shoulders so the coat falls off until it's only hanging on by the sleeves. She covers her mouth to mask a yawn. “I think I'll let you be the captain again.”  
  
“Tired?”  
  
“A little. We've had a very long night.” Merrill smiles and Isabela matches it, momentarily caught up in the shared memory of their long and wonderful night. “To bed?”  
  
“To bed,” Isabela agrees. She watches as Merrill slips out of the coat completely and folds it carefully before setting it on top of the chest at the end of their bed.  
  
_Their_ bed. It's a funny phrase, Isabela thinks. One she could get used to.


End file.
